First Look: Shining Tears

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Everything we know about this PS2 title, along with screens.

By Anoop Gantayat

Following up on its announcement earlier this week of Shining Tears for the PlayStation 2, Sega has returned with first screens and details on the game. Check out this story's media section for the first screen shots.

Shining Tears is an action-RPG take on the classic Shining Force series that began on the Sega Genesis. While the game's developer has not been disclosed, the producer of the game is Tsuyoshi Sawada, who's listed in the special thanks for the Game Boy Advance action-RPG Shining Soul.

In Shining Tears, you play as 17 year old Xion. Xion lost his memory and was saved by the residents of the castle town of Shildea. Now Shildea is coming under attack by the Rungeist Empire. Xion fights to save the people of the town from the invading force.

One of the big catches with the game is that it puts you in control a secondary character in addiiton to Xion. The secondary character is called a "partner." Xion is the main character under your control, but along the way through your adventure you'll meet many other characters and will be given the option of teaming up with them. The various partners you'll encounter have different traits, meaning the choices you make affect battle greatly. Story is also affected by your choices, with the game including love and friendship elements.

Outside of Xion, a wide variety of characters are featured in Shining Tears, many holding a certain Shining Force quality in their profiles. Elwing (17 years old, hunter), Ryuna (17 years old, priest) and Volg (45 year old, fighting wolf-man) are three possible partners in the game. Xion also has a few rivals in the form of Keiner (19 year old, samurai) and Cheiron (38 year old knight). These last two characters do not serve as partners on your journey.

Your characters are built up through the course of the game. Shining Tears uses a level up system based off of experience earned in battle. As characters go up in level, they earn skill and status points which can be distributed between various skills. There are lots of skills, including some big attacks for Xion.

So how exactly do you go about controlling two characters simultaneously? Partners are actually under the control of the computer, but thanks to the all-knew "Force Link System," it's possible to send commands to them. There are three command options, available through the right stick and the R1 and R2 buttons. While this area is still a bit unclear, it seems that inputing commands opens up combination attacks between you and your partner.

You'll also be able to play the game with another human player, each player controlling one character. Details on how the combination attacks will work in two player mode have yet to be revealed.

In comments with Japanese gaming publication Famitsu, Sawada makes particular mention of the game's characters, designed by Tony, and the beautiful background illustrations. He mentions that being able to control two characters offers up a new feeling for the game, but also describes the controls as being simple. He asks what kind of partnerships you'll create? Man and woman, beast and elf -- whatever you like. Lastly, he asks players to look forward to the game's opening movie.

As with Shining Force, Sega has opened up a webpage for Shining Tears which is from where most of this information emerges. To see some of the artwork for this game, check out the official Shining Tears page.

Development on Shining Tears is currently at 70%. A Japanese release is planned in the Fall of 2004. Sega of America has yet to officiall announce plans for the game's American version.